Campaigner condemns lack of help for Trowbridge family

Campaigner Jean Taylor said it is appalling that Hayley Richards’ family were not told her killer was deported to Portugal before it happened.

Mrs Taylor campaign and support group Families Fighting for Justice in 2008 to lobby for tougher sentences and to support families of victims, after losing her sister in 1998, a son in 2000 and a daughter in 2004 to acts of homicide.

Hayley Richards’ family have raised money for the group and took part in the Life for Life rally, which Families Fighting for Justice held in London in 2010.

The group, which has a drop-in centre in Liverpool, has also been fighting for families of murder victims to have more information about the perpetrators of the crime and not be left in the dark.

Mrs Taylor said: “I am appalled, but not shocked. The system needs a big shake up, because families should know as much information as possible and it is a disgrace that Quintas was deported to Portugal without them knowing before.

“One of the things we have campaigned for is more information for families of victims. It should be like tracking a parcel, with families being given information on the perpetrator every step of the way.

“I find the lack of information absolutely appalling to say the least and I’m speaking from experience, as I only found out my daughter’s killer was moved from a category A to category B prison when I was contacted by a national newspaper.

“Families need as much information as they can get and there is no excuse for them not getting it. Also, if you kill someone in our country, the rules of our country should apply wherever they go.”

In a similar case, the family of murdered Somerset woman Catherine Wells-Burr recently set up a petition to call for her killers to serve their sentences in the UK, rather than be transferred to their native Poland.

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Mrs Taylor said she will be on a Victims’ Panel set up by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling and Policing minister Damian Green, where those affected by crime can tell ministers directly how the system could better serve families.

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She said: “It is issues such as this that I will bring to the Victims’ Panel as there needs to be more support for families.

“At times, it seems the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

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